Chris Messina In Negotiations To Join Ben Affleck’s ‘Live By Night’

Chris Messina is in negotiations to play the character of Dion Bartolo in the Dennis Lehane Prohibition-era crime drama Live By Night, which Ben Affleck is starring in, writing and directing. Messina previously starred in Affleck’s critical and commercial smash Argo,on which the Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice star similarly pulled multi-hyphenate duties.

Live By Night uses some of the characters from Lehane’s sprawling period novel The Given Day and brings them into Prohibition. The focus is Joe Coughlin, the black-sheep son of a police captain who gets involved in escalating levels of organized crime.

Other than Argo, Messina’s credits include David Gordon Green’s Mangelhorn opposite Al Pacino as well as TV series The Mindy Project and TheNewsroom. Messina also directed and co-starred in Alex Of Venice. He’s repped by WME and Gendler Kelly.

Affleck is producing Live By Night with Jennifer Todd through Pearl Street, along with Appian Way’s Jennifer Killoran Davisson and Leonardo DiCaprio.